Not only is this an intellectual gain, but it is an immense
fortification to the will. There comes a time in the experience of
every thinking man when a command not reinforced by a reason breeds
distrust, and when until he can intelligently defend an ideal he will
hesitate to give it his allegiance. Morality, to be depended upon,
must be not a mere matter of breeding and convention, or of impulse
and emotion, but the result of rational insight and conscious resolve.
To many people morality seems nothing but convention, or an arbitrary
tyranny, or a mysterious and awful necessity, something extraneous
to their own desires, from which they would like to escape. To be able
to refute these skeptics, expose the sophisms and specious arguments
by which they support their wrongdoing, and show that they have chosen
the lesser good, is a valuable help to the community and to one's own
integrity of conduct. Too often the people perish for lack of vision;
an understanding of the naturalness and enormous desirability of
morality, together with an appreciation of its main injunctions, would
enlist upon its side many restless spirits who now chafe under a sense
of needless restraint and seek some delusory freedom which leads to
pain and death. Morality is simply the best way of living; and the
more fully men realize that, the more readily will they submit themselves
to the sacrifices it requires.
(4) Finally, a study of ethics should help us to see what are the
prevalent sins and moral dangers of our day, and thus arouse us to
put the weight of our blame and praise where they are needed.
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